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06.25.2025 / Press Release

NEW REPORT: Medicaid Supports American Workers

Medicaid provides health care coverage to nearly 20 million blue-collar and low-wage workers across America

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Families USA is releasing a new report detailing the specific industries that depend on the nearly 20 million low-wage workers in America who get their health care coverage through Medicaid. The key industries with the highest percentage of workers covered by Medicaid represent the backbone of the U.S. economy and are overwhelmingly blue-collar and low-wage jobs, including the retail and service industries, health care and social services, manufacturing, transportation, education and farming. The workers are predominantly women (56%) and are a plurality White (46%) and in some states, account for more than 15% of the workforce, including West Virginia and New York.

“Our nation’s economy depends on the millions of American workers who clock in day after day, and when it comes to accessing affordable health care coverage, those workers depend on Medicaid. Nearly all able-bodied adults with Medicaid coverage work; they are just in low-income jobs that don’t provide employer benefits. Medicaid matters not just for 20 million workers and their families and communities, but also for their employers and industries and economies to survive and thrive,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Families USA. “The severe cuts to Medicaid included in the budget bill, including new red tape requirements, will add a significant bureaucratic burden that will do nothing but cost money and force folks off coverage. The paperwork requirements are a particular problem for these low-income workers with changing hours, seasonal and school schedules, and gig jobs. This budget bill betrays millions of Americans who voted for lower costs, and will now be pushed and priced out of health coverage to pay for bigger tax cuts for billionaires and big corporations.”

The current version of the budget reconciliation bill includes severe cuts to the Medicaid program that supports health care for 80 million Americans, including nearly 20 million low-wage workers who often have no other options for affordable health care coverage. The bill also includes new bureaucratic burdens that would punish Americans for losing their job and would require Americans to prove they work 40 hours per week in order to access health care, despite that more than 90% of eligible adults on Medicaid are already working or would be exempt from work reporting requirements.

Key Findings:
Based on Families USA’s analysis of 2023 American Community Survey data, more than 19.4 million low-wage workers from key industries rely on Medicaid for health insurance, including:

  • More than 7.3 million retail and service industry workers, including those in food service, hospitality, and maintenance sectors, as well as those who are cashiers.
    • 25% of retail and service industry workers in Alaska are on Medicaid.
  • More than 2 million health care and social service workers, including in-home health care and nursing care facilities, as well as hospital support staff and child care providers.
    • 25% of social service workers in Ohio are on Medicaid.
  • More than 1.3 million manufacturing and factory workers.
  • More than 1.2 million transportation and warehouse workers, including truck drivers, pilots, taxi operators and cargo handlers.
    • Nearly 20% of Pennsylvania’s transportation workers are on Medicaid.
  • More than 1.1 million teachers and educators.
  • More than 300,000 farmers, fishers, hunters and loggers.
    • 30% of Maine’s farmers, fishers, hunters and loggers are on Medicaid.

Families USA, the longtime health consumer advocate, is organizing with groups across the nation to protect Medicaid from severe cuts that will result in millions of Americans losing access to the health care they need. Earlier this year, Families USA led hundreds of organizations in calling on Congress and the Trump administration to reject cuts to Medicaid and work to make health care more affordable, not less.

For additional resources, see Families USA’s fact sheets on how work reporting requirements would undermine access to Medicaid, how cuts harm families and communities, and the overall importance of Medicaid to people, the economy and the health care system.